WP16
RegenHeart: Generation of a whole bioengineered heart by combination of decellularized cardiac organs and cardiovascular progenitors differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells.
Heart failure is the leading cause of mortality worldwide. For end-stage patients, heart transplantation and total artificial heart remain the only effective therapies, but are affected by many drawbacks, as donor shortage, immunosuppressive therapy and/or lifelong anticoagulation therapy.
Here, we intend to develop a completely biocompatible human substitute of the failing cardiac organ, by means of whole heart decellularization and repopulation with cardiovascular progenitors derived from the differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells.
TEAM
G. Gerosa
Is Full Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Padova Medical School. He performed the first Italian robot enhanced coronary bypass on beating heart. He led the team who performed the first Italian ABO incompatible heart transplant in pediatric patients and he performed the first Italian Cardiowest total artificial heart implant. He is currently Chief of Cardiac Surgery and Director of Heart Transplant Program at the University Hospital of Padova. He serves as Scientific Director of CORIS, a consortium dedicated to support research. He is author of around 390 articles published on international journals.
S. Imran
Is working as postdoc within the group of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine, focusing on the development of a whole bioengineered heart (WP16). She earned her Master’s in Biochemistry in 1999 and her PhD. Is in Chemistry with biochemistry area of research in drug discovery in year 2008. After her doctorate from Pakistan, she has been working in various well reputed universities and institution of Europe including Czech Republic, England, Sweden and Italy. Her main research expertise includes Stem Cell Biology, disease modeling based on human induced Pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), Molecular biology, and neurotoxicology. She has studied on genetic and molecular signaling pathways involved in the disease progression. Her current interests in the field of cardiac stem cells particularly, differentiation of cardiac progenitors from hiPSCs based regeneration of decellularized heart. She has been published around 25 articles in peer reviewed journals based on various research areas included biological chemistry, cell and molecular biology and toxicology.